Having established in previous papers the necessity of giving the national government all the powers described in the Constitution, Madison now seeks to reassure his audience that such a powerful general government will not threaten the remaining authority of the state governments and render them wholly subservient.

March 3, 1817: As his last official act as President, Madison vetoes a bill that would provide federal funding for building roads and canals throughout the United States. The President finds no expressed congressional power to fund roads and canals in the Constitution, and he believes that the federal government should not encroach upon matters delegated to state governments.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to consider Hedges v. Obama, a constitutional claim challenging a law that could enable theindefinite military detention of US citizens—within the US—without trial, charge, or evidence of crime. The decision is remarkable, both for its implications for fundamental rights, and its reflection on judicial independence.

In Federalist 46, Madison stresses that states and the people themselves have significant – and effective – means at their disposal to counter “unwarrantable” (unconstitutional, that is) or “warrantable” but unpopular federal acts.

EDITOR’S NOTE: St. George Tucker was one of the most influential legal scholars of the early American republic. His View of the Constitution of the United States was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. And his Blackstone’s Commentaries, from which the following excerpt originates, was the major treatise on American law in the early 19th century. Lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States would frequently cite to Tucker’s Blackstone – more often than any other commentator until 1827.